Khan Noonien Singh in 2285, the Augment tyrant and last vestige of the Eugenics Wars.
The term augment describes a certain type of genetically engineered humanoid. These augments had both physical and mental advantages over their unaltered counterparts. (ENT: "Borderland")
The Project Chrysalis team, headed by Dr. Sarina Kaur, started working on genetic engineering on Earth in the 1970s. Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln destroyed the project. (Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars)
The augments became reality sometime before 1993. Their enhancements included strength five times greater than a normal human's, doubled lung efficiency and doubled intelligence. An aggressive and arrogant personality was also typical. 22nd century geneticist Dr. Arik Soong later determined defective genomes caused a propensity for augments to be violent and aggressive. (ENT: "The Augments")
The Eugenics Wars started in 1993 with augments fighting humans in over 40 Earth nations. The Wars lasted until 1996, with the last augment removed from power being Khan Noonien Singh. Despite this, at wars' end, over eighty augments could not be found, including Khan. (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) The augments left various booby-traps world-wide, killing or severely injuring tens of thousands of people. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles; Star Trek: The Cantabrian Expeditions) All remaining augment embryos were collected and placed into cold storage. By the 2130s, they would be stored off-world. (ENT: "Cold Station 12")
Dr. Stavos Keniclius, a scientist involved in the Eugenics Wars.
The United Nations banned genetic engineering, with clone Stavos Keniclius exiled and other scientists who created the augments fleeing. (TAS: "The Infinite Vulcan"; Infiltrator)
Malik in 2154.
In the 2130s, Cold Station 12's medical director Arik Soong stole several augment embryos and raised the children as his own. He was captured and charged with the crimes but never divulged the whereabouts of the embryos. By 2154, the augments were fully grown and nearly started a war between Earth and the Klingon Empire. Soong helped the Earth Starfleet vessel Enterprise track the augments, originally betraying the Enterprise crew and escaping with the augments. Witnessing the augments brutality, Soong soon felt powerless, but his augments' destructive nature led them to commit suicide instead of being captured. Soong gave up genetics. (ENT: "Cold Station 12", "Borderland", "The Augments")
See also: Augment Crisis
A Klingon prisoner infected with the Augment virus.
The Klingons also created augments as a knee-jerk reaction to Earth's escaped augments, using several human augment embryos for their experiments. Unfortunately, the augment genetics, combined with Levodian flu, mutated and created a deadly airborne plague. The plague's main distinguishing feature was collapse of the forehead ridges on infected Klingons, making them appear more human. While a cure was found, millions of Klingons were now more human in their appearance and called QuchHa'. ENT: "Afflication", "Divergence"; DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations"; Star Trek: The Original Series; Summon the Thunder)
- This explained why TOS Klingons had flat foreheads.
Khan Noonien Singh in 2267.
Khan and his augment followers resurfaced in 2267 in deep space aboard a sleeper ship. Khan attempted to commandeer the USS Enterprise but failed, and James Kirk offered them exile on Ceti Alpha V. The offer was accepted. (TOS: "Space Seed") Ceti Alpha V became a hell six months later when its neighboring planet exploded and destabilised the planet's orbit. The planet went from paradise to hell, killing most of the augments.
Nearly 20 years later, Khan escaped and attempted to gain revenge, but he and his followers died in the process. (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
By the 24th century, genetic modification was still banned by the Federation. Illegal operations still took place to enhance some parts of humans and others. (DS9: "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?", "Statistical Probabilities", "Chrysalis"). Genetic modification of Betazoids, such as Grimaud. As a result, he had enhanced telepathic abilities, which he could not always control. (Star Trek: Lambda Paz: "Midnight Ride, "Religion To Do Good")
Unsanctioned augmentation experiments were also performed on some of the children of Enclave J-12, including Cody Sinclair. (Star Trek: Pendragon)
Known Augments[]
- See: Augments
External links[]
- Augment article at Memory Alpha, the canon Star Trek wiki.
- Augment article at Memory Beta, the non-canon Star Trek wiki.